[Fis] Cultural Relativsm

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear List,

In science itself we have good instances of the 
information/disinformation conundrum. We have a enormous stock of 
specialized knowledge in the order of 6,000 disciplines. In front of new 
problems or too complex ones, the insistence to apply the own expertise 
creates real problems of disinformation/misinformation and real clashes 
of cultures. Not long ago, in the 60s & 70s, autism was attributed by 
leading experts (under the influence of psychology & clinical schools) 
to "refrigerator mothers"--literally. It added a lot to the suffering of 
many families. It still could be heard in the 80s... In science we need 
a lot of discussion and often heated exchanges to arrange the 
appropriate portions of knowledge that best fits the research problems 
at hand. In general, confrontation between distant cultures, scientific 
or otherwise, raises not very kind reactions.

And the new media--internet, mobiles, social networks-- also generate 
very easily reactions of Khaneman's System 1 type (say fast, 
inconsiderate, self-asserting). Part of the "hooks" that fake news 
display are based on provoking that type of immediate visceral 
reactions: outrage/fear/aggressiveness/despise & supremacism/etc. Both 
the amputated (caricature) context to which these news refer and the 
type of reactions they elicit become elements for seeing them as 
fake--rather easily for the informed observer.  MacLuhan would have said 
that these new media are very cool and very inclusive of ourselves. 
Personally I had observed long ago that just irrelevant emails can 
ignite "flares" far more often than the old media we used (letters), 
even the faxes of the 80s and 90s were already elements more susceptible 
to create conflict.

By the way, this list has been traditionally a place of respect and good 
tone, and of freedom of thought. Please, let us keep our high standards.

Best--Pedro

El 22/01/2020 a las 2:41, Terrence W. DEACON escribió:
> Is cultural-hyper-relativism intellectual disinformation or just 
> misinformation?
> Does it depend on whether the intention is to mislead or just persuade?
> What if the purveyor is a believer who is selfishly trying to get 
> people to agree with his theory?
> Ah, the complex subtlety of the role of intent.
>
> Are there metadata that might correlate with the intent behind 
> disinformation?
> Assessing this would the analogue to using galvanic skin response and 
> heart rate for lie detection.
> I.e. an index that would automatically update with each replication to 
> provide a crude "reliability rating" linked to each message.
> Though fallible and defeatable it could be a first mode of alert - 
> like the initial pause when you answer a robocall.
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 4:14 AM Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch 
> <mailto:joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>> wrote:
>
>     Dear Some,
>
>     This note is to denounce a principle of cultural relativism that
>     has crept into the Lecture discussion. The concept that opposing
>     points of view are always equally valid is a form of
>     crypto-fascism that for me is totally unacceptable. It is Trump’s
>     “there are good guys on the other side”, which included the
>     murderers of a demonstrator. Does anyone on the list want to
>     suggest that clitorectomies are acceptable because “it’s part of
>     the culture”? I do not intend to include responses to such notes
>     in my final summary. If this position is not to the liking of some
>     members, they can erase my future messages, as I have theirs.
>
>     Joseph
>
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> -- 
> Professor Terrence W. Deacon
> University of California, Berkeley
>
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-- 
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group

pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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